The Leading Fan Blog for The Voice

December 17, 2012

Episode Postmortem: Season 3 Performance Finale

The Voice is less than 24 hours away from crowning a Season 3 winner. As they waited for America’s votes, finalists Terry McDermott, Cassadee Pope and Nicholas David joined Big Red Chairs on the carpet to share their thoughts.

The evening started with a touching tribute to the victims of the recent Newtown, CT school shooting, as the Voice coaches joined their live show finalists, host Carson Daly and social media correspondent Christina Milian for a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” while holding placards with the names and ages of the victims. If you missed that opening performance, you can view it here.

The tragedy also affected Cassadee later in the evening, during her repeat performance of Blake Shelton’s hit “Over You,” as the artists were asked to reprise their top renditions of the season. “I connected with it even more now because I was thinking about Connecticut and how horrible that is and losing people,” she said afterward. “I was thinking about that.”

The show had to go on, however, and the artists made the most of it with a trio of new performances as well as duets with their coaches. “[The night] started off on a somber note but we’ve got to celebrate life while we have it,” said Nicholas. “I was excited to end [my run on] the show like that. [A] piano was on fire, things were blowing up, people were hanging from trapezes, there’s a mini Cee Lo. It was too cool.”

Going out on a big note was definitely his intention. “After last week’s performance being so stripped down and emotionally raw, I was like ‘Let’s just blow some stuff up,'” he continued. “Let’s go for it.”

Another surprise on Monday night was Adam Levine guesting on Blake Shelton and Terry’s performance of Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady” – with the shirtless Maroon 5 front man channeling Axl Rose. According to Terry, Adam’s wardrobe choice (or lack thereof) wasn’t part of the plan.

“I have no idea,” he said when asked where it came from. “All the way through rehearsals, he had a shirt on. There was no headband. There was nothing. So that was a surprise to us. That’s why when I looked over, Blake is laughing his ass off, and I’m like ‘Really, what the hell’s going on here?'”

“We had great fun with that,” he added. “It was just a nice little touch. we were having great fun in rehearsal but that just finished it off.”

Terry was shocked when Blake revealed that his father, Terry McDermott Sr., had flown to Los Angeles to support his son in the finale. “To have him in the room to feel the atmosphere, to see the action, it was wonderful,” he said, though he added that his heart might be a little weak after all the surprise appearances from his loved ones over the season. “I was like, you could just put me through an assault course or an endurance test, you don’t have to keep wheeling out family members,” he quipped.

With their final performances in the books, all the three artists can do is wait for America to vote and crown a winner. Cassadee is the favorite to win if you listen to Internet buzz, but not necessarily if you ask her. “I try not to let it affect me because I feel like the moment you get comfortable in this situation, the moment it bites you in the ass a little bit,” she explained. “It’s been a great encouragement and it makes me feel good, but I’ve always kind of been my worst critic.”

Never having looked at the series as a competition, Nicholas was just enjoying the experience. “This has been the adventure of a lifetime,” he reflected, “but I’m excited to close the chapter on this adventure and start a new book. I felt this was a good way to end it.”

Teammates Cassadee and Terry are now head-to-head, but Cassadee added that it’s not an uncomfortable experience to compete against her friend. “It’s not weird at all because we’re individuals,” she said. “Our coach makes us feel very special individually. He doesn’t do favoritism or anything like that. There’s never been a weird moment.”

“Frankly, we’ve never really been that competitive,” agreed Terry, who could have summed up the entirety of the Voice season as he said, “We get on so well, and the way we’ve always viewed it is you just leave it on the stage and then other people decide. Nobody’s trying to sabotage or be negative. We want the best for each other and if you win, it’s because you deserve to.”

The season 3 winner will be revealed as The Voice wraps up its two-night Season 3 finale Tuesday at the special time of 9 PM ET/PT on NBC.

9 thoughts on “Episode Postmortem: Season 3 Performance Finale”

not to be critical but… kinda boring finale. IMO none of the performances were as good as the ones we got last year (I’d say they also weren’t as good as the ones from season 1 but I barely remember that finale tbqh)

and also, did it look like anyone else that Carson was focusing too much on Adam? I think he asked him for feedback on almost every performance while he only asked Christina twice and Cee Lo and Blake only commented on their team’s performances. I get that Christina tends to ramble so skipping her is a good way to save time and that today is her and Cee Lo’s last episode so they may have been trying to shift the focus to Adam and Blake to make the change next season a bit more natural, but it was a bit weird to me. I mean, if they’re there you might as well ask them their opinion

I think the last two Monday night episodes have been a little off, and I wonder if it’s because of programming shifts. Remember, last week they cut the Monday show in half to promo the Howie Mandel game show and this week they chopped off a half-hour for that new Jenna Elfman comedy (which…most awkward cross-promotion ever). I wonder if those two decisions were somewhat last-minute by NBC and they had to readjust the pacing/timing of the show a bit.

I’m still laughing over whatever the hell Adam was doing last night, though. I can’t lie about that.

It was. I think Carson might have just been a little off his game with the show being shortened and all the stuff going on, and so he probably didn’t even notice he was focusing on Adam. Don’t know, just my guess.

Like how bizarre it is that tonight’s finale results show is two hours – the first time, if I’m remembering right, the results show has been longer than a performance show. But we have to cram all those guest performers in!

I think Airtight and I have a thing about disagreeing 🙂 i thought it was the best of the three finals shows, myself. Except for poor Terry. You could see Adam and Christina each taking a turn at encouraging him after an off performance. But, I enjoyed all of the performances by Cassadee and Nicholas. At this point, I don’t think there’s a whole lot new that the coaches can critique on. The singers have done about twice as many songs as the last two years so everyone knows who they are and what they can do.
BTW – are they really rerunning 60 of the 90 minute show from last night, prior to tonight’s concert (aka “results”) show?

how dare you disagree with me!!!!?!?!1/1/1/1 but yeah, I hadn’t noticed how often that happens lol

I get why you would think this finale was better than last season, the thing is that for me this season hasn’t had the standout talent that the previous seasons did. The *overall* talent was probably higher this season but to me there just weren’t any standouts like Chris, Juliet, Dia or Vicci and the few that came close were eliminated weeks ago
it also doesn’t help that with all the new rules Cassadee is basically guaranteed to win (which I do think she deserves) so it’s hard to care about a competition when you already know the outcome

Ditto on the last part. It’s kind of anticlimactic tonight because the iTunes multiplier/cumulative votes all but guarantees it for Cassadee. It was kind of disheartening to go home last night and vote my tail off for Terry, while knowing it probably wasn’t going to do any good.

I’m not quite as disinterested because usually by the final few weeks of the season a winner starts to be obvious (Javier in Season 1 and I know by this time in Season 2 we were all convinced Tony Lucca would take it), but at least we knew then that our votes might, and in the case of Jermaine winning, obviously DID count for something. This time I’m not sure any of the voting mattered last night with the new rules. But, that’s the cynic in me talking.

It just wouldn’t be as much fun without some disagreement. Like Siskel and Ebert. With that, I do agree that s3 has been less edgy than s2 or s1. I think that’s a function of going all-audience vote. The flip side is that this season’s winner (Cassadee) is more likely to have a successful post-show album, as a result. That’s the one remaining monkey on the show’s back. It’s interesting to imagine what might have happened under the old rules. Cassadee, Dez, Amanda or Melanie (who do you think?), and Nicholas or Trevin(?)…(?)
btw – do you know where did Milo come from?